Saturday, September 27, 2014

The Aland Postal Service
has issued three nice cards named
"Golden Age of Aland Music" on the 25th of August 2014. These cards featured three of the most popular Aland bands during the 1960s.
They were theAnacondas,
the Hitch Hikers and the Stockdoves.

During some groovy years in the middle of the 1960s,
dances were arranged in the Åland

community centres on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays
and, sometimes, even on Sundays.

The bands Anacondas, Hitch
Hikers and Stockdovestook pop music of the world to Åland and Finland.

The
1960s was the decade when pop music took Åland by storm. The range of music in
the early 1960s had more or less consisted of music performed on accordion,
upright bass and guitar for the traditional dances hambo, schottische and
foxtrot. But the winds changed and, inspired by bands such as The Shadows, The
Spotnicks and The Violents, the Åland barbed-wire bandThe Anacondas was formed in
1962.“We played in community centres up to four times a week,” Karl-Erik
“Kille” Williams, clarinet and guitar player in Anacondas, accounts.

The
Åland music was even exported, performing on Finnish as well as on Swedish
television. Perhaps the Hitch Hikers was the band that ventured most and the
band members succeeded in earning their living as band members for a few
years. “At least, we made a
serious attempt. If we succeeded is another question,” organ player
Håkan Rikberg laughs.
They toured in Turku and Helsinki, making detours to Ostrobothnia. Once,
they performed on the same television program as Sonny & Cher. Håkan Rikberg
remembers the Hitch Hikers’ tour bus, a rickety minibus, which the police did
not like. It had messages and expressions of affections from loyal
fans from around the country scribbled all over it. The turnover of band
members was considerable. Håkan Rikberg and Kille Williams both appeared in
various line-upps with the majority of Åland bands. And they did become well
known. “In an Åland perspective, we were rather popular, I do
believe. Where we played, everybody wanted to be,” Kille Williams says.

Thursday, September 04, 2014

The ship shown on this card belongs to the Royal Military Police of Netherlands. This nice card was sent to me by Stella.The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (RNLM) is a gendarmerie corps, i.e. a police corps with military status. Marechaussee personnel are both military and police personnel. The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee is deployable in all situations at home and abroad in the interests of security, especially when the going gets tough. The RNLM is deployed to areas of strategic importance, from palaces and airports in the Netherlands to Europe’s external borders, as well as to conflict areas and theatres of war anywhere in the world. Within the Netherlands Defence organisation, the RNLM also functions as a military police force.

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About Me

Hi, I am Vijay Kapre. Its nice collecting picture postcards. They tell you so much about the people and places around us. Happy Viewing. Those who want to contact me my email address is kaprevijay@gmail.com.